Dino Thunder
by Hawki
Summary: Oneshot: It's hard being a pigeon in Sydney. Kaiju attacks don't make it any easier.


**Dino Thunder**

 _Well,_ thought Rocky. _This isn't a sight you see every day._

Actually, scratch that, he'd never seen anything like this in his three-year life. He'd seen humans, cars, dogs, cats, and other birds. Even seagulls, though they were mostly jerks as far as he was concerned. And never, in all his years as a pigeon, had he seen anything resembling the sight before him. Not even Mittens the Kitten had been as terrifying.

"Cor blimey, would you look at that?!"

But Mittens, at least, hadn't talked as much. Mittens was a cat, and cats knew what they wanted, and how to get it. Whether it be meowing for food, or hunting down pigeons.

"Get 'im! Get 'im!"

But not seagulls. Lucky bastards.

"Awesome!"

But Rocky remained on top of the building and watched the spectacle before him. Even if he had to endure Steve's prattling.

"Would you look at that, eh?" Steve asked, putting his wing around Rocky as if they were old friends. "The sea birds were right! The monsters are real!"

Rocky twaddled to the side. Monsters being real. How was that a good thing?

It wasn't, as far as he was concerned. Before she'd been run over by a car, his mother had told him about the "good ol' days." Back when there was more food, and pigeons in Sydney would never starve. True, no-one handed it out to them (apparently there was a city on the other side of the world where pigeons were better treated – London or something), but the humans ate so much, you could always end the day on a full stomach if you scrounged long enough. But then, everything had changed. The monster had come, and since then, nothing had been the same. There'd been less food, he could tell that much. And something else was…off. There were no longer fireworks at the end of the year for instance. There wasn't as much traffic on the road, or people on the streets, and less…laughter. It was the only way he could describe it.

And seeing the monster before him, if there were other creatures like that menacing the Pacific, then he could understand why. It was huge. Taller than the Opera House, taller than the Harbour Bridge, taller than most of the buildings in the CBD. Fighting it was another monster, this one made of metal, and more resembling a human form. But last Rocky checked, humans didn't grow up to be one-hundred metres tall. Nor could they fire missiles from their chest.

Steve cheered as the metal thing sent balls of fire into the monster. It screamed the scream that Rocky knew all too well – monsters might have been monsters, but they were still animals, least as far as he was aware. Every animal knew when their end was near. It screamed, it cried, and then fell. Taking out a building and several abandoned cars with it. Looking down from the building he was perched on, Rocky saw the creature take one final breath, before lying still.

A car alarm drifted through the air, but for Rocky, it might have been the sound of silence. That strange, eerie sound, that was said to have once have only come over Sydney at the dead of night. Now, it was much more common.

"Awesome," Steve repeated.

'Awesome,' Rocky reflected. It seemed to be the only adjective the seagull was capable of.

"Did you see that? Huh?"

"Yes."

"Wasn't it-"

"Awesome?" Rocky asked.

"No, I was going to say cool." Steve flapped his wings, taking in the morning breeze. "But still awesome."

"Right. Awesome."

 _Why am I even here?_ Rocky asked. _I saved him from eating that chicken wing, and then he thinks we're best buddies or something._

Chicken wings. Few birds knew it was an act of cannibalism, and some didn't even care. But chicken wings, like chips, weren't around these days. Only giant monsters were.

"I think Herman was right," Rocky said.

Steve looked at him.

"The albatross I met last year. He said that there's monsters like this all over the Pacific." Steve opened his beak, but he continued. "Yeah, Herman's strange, ever since that mariner tried to shoot at him, but he's an albatross Steve. You have any idea how much of the world they get to see?"

Steve shrugged as best a seagull could. And Rocky continued.

"It's not just that. He thinks we're even related to them."

Steve spit out something from his mouth. And something white escaped from his rear.

"I mean, I know we're descended from reptiles-"

"No we're not," Steve protested. Just like he always did. "I was born a seagull, and I'll die a seagull." He looked down at the monster. "I'm going to feast like a seagull too!"

"Steve, you'll get sick!"

"No I won't! Watch me!"

Sure enough, Steve flew down to the monster. Already there was a flock of seagulls circling overhead. Down on the street, Rocky could even see a magpie, looking on a mix of curiosity and hunger. And unease at the myna birds hopping around.

 _Twats._

Rocky flew down and landed on the monster. It smelt funny. _Felt_ funny as well. Its flesh was hard, but…familiar, somehow. Herman had said that the monsters weren't of this world. That they were a different form of life entirely. Yet he had also told stories of other birds saying different. That they had felt a connection with them. Birds who accepted that their ancestors had once ruled the earth millions of years ago. That they had descended from them after judgment came from the sky.

"Blast it," Steve said, his beak rebounding off the monster's flesh. "It's too hard."

Rocky looked over the street. The siren cars were coming. Red ones, blue ones, even green ones. And funny suited people started getting out and setting up roadblocks. It was what humans did when something bad happened. Like it was some kind of ceremony or something.

"What if it's true?" Rocky asked – partly to Steve, partly to himself. "What if the monsters are like us? That they're of the same kin as our distant ancestors? What does that make us?"

"Connoisseurs." Steve was still trying to get his beak into the monster's flesh. And still failing.

"Yeah, but-"

Steve let out a squawk as the yellow-suited humans began spraying water at them. Both of the birds found solace on another rooftop.

"Drongos!" Steve yelled. "Ya buncha drongos!"

"They can't understand you Steve!"

"This is an act most fowl! You've flown the coop! Come up here, I'll show you I'm no chicken!"

"And no-one likes puns either."

Steve continued to rant, and Rocky let him. Steve and his seagulls would come back. They always did. But he was a pigeon. It was his lot in life to feed on crumbs. Be chased by cats. And talk to albatrosses on the beach who imparted words that haunted him to this day.

Herman had said that their ancestors were like these monsters. That he'd talked to the Great Owl from across the sea, and had learnt it to be true. That those monsters had remained on Earth, and given rise to their kind. And now, their kin had returned. Different in size, shape, even basic biology. But still their kin, however distant. Arguably even closer than so much of life on Earth.

What if it was true, Rocky wondered? What if the creature down there was, on some level, related? This…this monster?

And if so, what did that make him?


End file.
